December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: What can the judge do to me?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:21 AM 4/15/96 -0700, Hal wrote: >From: Black Unicorn <unicorn(a)schloss.li> > >> The key to limiting the ability of a court to summarily enter contempt >> sanctions has always been the classification of the sanctions. >> "Criminal" sanctions, may entitle the witness to a trial by jury. >> [...] >> "Civil" sanctions do >> not require such protections and can be imposed on the spot and >> without review. > >I didn't understand what distinguishes civil and criminal sanctions. Is >it the nature of the proceedings, whether it is a civil or criminal case >that is before the judge? Or is it the nature of the contempt charge >itself, where not doing what the judge wants, in broad terms, is civil >contempt? And in that case, what would be criminal contempt? He may answer those questions, but I don't think he'll dare answer the question about if there is a constituional justification for a difference between "civil" and "criminal" in most things the government's courts do. My impression is that the "civil" classification is often simply used to dilute or eliminate the various constitutional protections that the government hasn't yet dared to remove from areas it calls "criminal." Too bad we won't get a straight answer... We also won't get a straight answer about the constitutional justification for "contempt of court" penalties at all! The Constitution defines the powers of government; it does not restrict those of the people. The idea that a judge can punish someone, especially someone not present in court, is bizarre. It is even more odd when such punishment appears to exceed what the government is allowed to do absent any kind of jury decision and conviction. If you're willing to accept NON-Constitutional "justifications," I'm sure you'll get plenty of that. The only hint of a Constitutional obligation to testify comes from an amendment which states that defendants have a right to compel testimony favorable to them; it does not say that prosecution has the right to compel testimony from a third party that incriminates a defendant. If his response is, "Oh, but we've ALWAYS done it that way!", you need to remember that until the American Civil war, slavery was legal in southern states, and until 1920 women weren't allowed to vote, and until 1955 "separate but equal" was the law of the land, until 1972 or so the death penalty was constitutional...and then it wasn't...and then it was again...and so on. Government is never willing to admit it's wrong until it's good and ready. That doesn't mean we can't express our own opinions "prematurely." I'd sure like to hear the "why" behind this stuff, but I won't... Sigh.

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Portland Cypherpunk Meeting for April
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- There will be another physical meeting on the Cypherpunks in Portland, OR. The particulars: Location: Powell's Technical Bookstore 33 NW Park Portland, OR 97209 (Just north of Burnside off of the Park blocks.) Date: April 27th, 1996 Time: 5:23pm Discussions will cover: ** A Portland Remailer ** Various Coding Projects ** Events in the News ** Other Projects related to Crypto (Web sites and Documentation) ** Possible PGP Keysigning (Depends on the response) ** General Discussion Devolving into Chaos If you have any other topics for discussion, bring them up at the meeting or you can e-mail me in advance. Powell's Technical Book has a good selection of crypto books, so you might want to be prepared. (Do not bring money you cannot afford to spend. Powell's has an evil force that seduces people into buying books.) A PGP keysigning will be held if there are enough interested people. If you are interested in participating, please send me your public key via e-mail. Any comments, suggestions, ideas, and/or complains can be sent to me at alano(a)teleport.com. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMXMZZeQCP3v30CeZAQG0/Af/To2q0fuLk8Q6KquP+6LX1/1EOqGGoxBZ jWfCJoz40Wk1EHMJMis+XpiPgcXg2nAZNeQXubS4Q9se8uGG57UbzpX8rv5GnzdV HWimufNeL/bfxSn+OYswTEQExSwG2V/TSWZNwfFf5Xl/6V0zy1Xa5qY8CEtXn1fr 3/vXicYexd3NwSvToN5udYYtUe2kH14O3RIoXAnaJwMZLvS+oiDzw8LWXI7UMdsf akUbhisfgf/lu3wiMVQkN2hdP15rioIlAhryA0skvl1fxh3OkFC8/GDJpRBRWD+K RjO5VgRRXYrQUG4PKAK8Y1/PSINzandOkaMc2duaSshslZYyI3YRmg== =zD1a -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon

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Re: Just wondering...
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Posted-Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 17:54:06 -0400 Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 17:54:06 -0400 (EDT) From: Black Unicorn <unicorn(a)schloss.li> X-Sender: unicorn(a)polaris.mindport.net To: Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> Subject: Re: Just wondering... MIME-Version: 1.0 On Mon, 15 Apr 1996, Lucky Green wrote: > Uni, > Just from past experience: if the judge realizes after putting you into the > slammer for a month and levying a $10k fine for contempt that you don't > have the information he is trying to coerce out of you, do you usually get > your money back? What about income lost while incarcerated? The former I have seen happen, the latter never. In the former case a tax document was "lost" by the witness's accountant who was in Moldavia and could not be located. The judge, reasonably, thought the witness was full of it. He imposed a per day fine, and after a time incarcerated the witness before the accountant was (finally) located and testified (by long distance telephone and intrepreter) that the documents have been lost in a fire at the national administration building, proof of which was entered in the form of newpaper articles. A motion to quash the fine was granted. The court apologized for the incarceration. Fines that are large and seem reasonable in the heat of court are more likely to get quashed when a judge who wasn't there later reviews it. Still, this is rare. As to the latter, that doesn't mean it won't, but seems unlikely. You don't usually get paid for the time you lose in court either, unless you sue for wrongful prosecution or costs which require malicious and wrongful prosecution. (Unlikely, extremely hard to prove or get a court to enforce). Pay your own costs tends to include opportunity cost of time in court. > TIA, > > -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> > PGP encrypted mail preferred. Feel free to repost this to the list. I don't forward private mail without explicit permission, but I think the list, and Mr. Finney might like to see it. --- My preferred and soon to be permanent e-mail address:unicorn@schloss.li "In fact, had Bancroft not existed, potestas scientiae in usu est Franklin might have had to invent him." in nihilum nil posse reverti 00B9289C28DC0E55 E16D5378B81E1C96 - Finger for Current Key Information Opp. Counsel: For all your expert testimony needs: jimbell(a)pacifier.com --- end forwarded text -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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None
by K00l Secrets 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> If the Diffie-Hellmann patent covers all kind of public key crypto, > you need a license from Cylink, i.e. BSAFE is not enough, and if it > doesn't you can use El Gamal without a license. Are there any freely available implementations of El Gamal?

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RE: math patents
by Robin Felix 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04/14/96 1457, jim bell may have written: >At 09:08 AM 4/14/96 -0800, Lee Tien wrote: >>My recollection from law >>school is that the law was friendly to math patents in the period before >>the Supreme Court weighed in. There were some PTO denials, which courts >>reversed (I think the Court of Claims heard these back then). So I think >>the trend was toward patenting processes even if mathematical until >>Gottschalk v. Benson >I seem to recall reading that one of the breakthrough "algorithm" patents >was from the 1970's, in which a rubber-curing/molding process's cure time >was determined by a mathematical formula based on heat, pressure, mold >shape, and a number of other variables. You're referring to Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 195 (1981). I have a half-finished article I wrote in 1994 on software algorithm patents, about 32K, available at <http://www.delfinsd.delfin.com/felix/Algorithm_Patents.htm>. It's the good part, the background material minus footnotes. Although it's a bit dated, the description of foundational cases is still accurate.

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Distributed Key Breaking
by Mark Cooke 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just as a quick thought - given the prevelance of Web Browsers - has anyone considered writing a Java Applet that would could run key space searches and factoring in an easily distributed manner. This would seem to be a 'reasonable' way to gain access to more CPU power - even though the Java code would not be as efficient as a native app. Perhaps as a supplement to the more 'traditional' methods that have been used in the past. Regards, Mark ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mark Cooke The views expressed above are mine Systems Programmer and do not reflect in any way the University Of Birmingham current policy of my employers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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CDA Court Challenge: Update #7 (Ducks on the Net)
by Declan B. McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The CDA Challenge, Update #7 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Declan McCullagh / declan(a)well.com / Courtesy of The Netly News ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From the Netly News at <http://pathfinder.com/Netly/daily/nnhome.html>: We've become fans of Declan McCullagh's dispatches from Philadelphia where a three-judge panel is determining the fate of the so-called Communications Decency Act. McCullagh, as you probably know, is an activist with the EFF whose free-speech stance mirrors our own. We'd be happy to run an opposing viewpoint, but we don't know anyone who's actually pro-CDA. Still, if you are and would like to use this bully pulpit to pitch your ideas to an extremely hostile audience, drop us a line. In the meantime, here's a piece we asked McCullagh to do for us as the hearing winds down. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- In this update: Ducks on the Net! More on BYU's Dan Olsen's censorhappy boondoggle Grey Flannel Suit wears Blue Pinstripe, surfs for porn April 15, 1996 PHILADELPHIA -- Ducks were a hit at the most recent Communications Decency Act hearing in Philadelphia's Federal court. Yes, ducks. Last Friday the Department of Justice's cybersleaze expert took the stand to show how easily children can stumble across online porn -- but the three-judge panel limited his demonstration to G-rated GIFs that he sucked down from alt.binaries.pictures.animals. (The judges already had hundreds of pages of dirty downloads in large black binders, courtesy of the Feds.) After the second or third image of waterfowl cartoons, Judge Stewart Dalzell said: "I'm sure we can agree that this is a cute duck." U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Dolores Sloviter ruled: "I think we've seen enough of the ducks." Justice Department attorneys had reserved the day to defend the constitutionality of the CDA, arguing that the criminal provisions of the law and a system to label sexually-explicit materials combine to form the best way to prevent children from stumbling across cyberporn. Key to the DoJ strategy was the testimony of Dan Olsen, Jr., their pet censorhappy toady from Brigham Young University who testified that to comply with the CDA, everyone who uses "indecent" speech should label it as "-L18," meaning unsuitable for those less than 18 years old. An intense cross examination by the ALA/CIEC's Bruce Ennis forced the BYU computer scientist to admit that his proposal has fatal problems: * Web browsers, IRC clients, newsreaders, and even the telnet application must be rewritten to recognize the "-L18" string. * Everyone who posts or publishes "indecent" materials must comply, including folks overseas. * "-L18" relies on the poster or publisher to decide what is "decent" or not -- unlike PICS, which our witness testified allows third parties to rate content, including non-U.S. material. On the fight-censorship mailing list, online activist Carl Kadie has pointed out why Olsen's plan is unconstitutional: 1. "The Government generally can not compel speech (including self-labels)" 2. "It would restrict 17-year olds to material suitable for 5-year olds." Given the braindead nature of Olsen's scheme, it's not surprising that he has no expertise in protocol design or distributed computing environments like the Internet. He also admitted during cross-examination that he invented the "-L18" boondoggle in the last two weeks and was unaware that similar proposals like "KidCode" already exist. An odd mix of prudish themes and Orwellian overtones laced his testimony. Olsen, the incoming director of the Human Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, testified that he found both Playboy centerfolds and "the seven dirty words" patently offensive. (He'll fit in nicely at his new job. CMU still bans the alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.* hierarchy from campus computers.) When asked if a list of URLs looked like a bunch of porn sites, Olsen hesitated: "I don't know, but I wouldn't go there." Judge Dalzell interrupted: "The 'Chick of the Day' could be poultry!" Judge Sloviter said: "Are you sure it isn't a duck?" In response to Bruce Ennis' question about how ISPs can check the ages of their users, Olsen replied: "The only people who might have this would be the Social Security Administration. I'm sure they have that information." So Olsen proposes that the _Social Security Administration_ would control who is allowed to access to the Net? +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ GREY FLANNEL SUIT SURFS NET FOR PORN, WEARS BLUE PINSTRIPE +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ The DoJ's net.sex expert who testified in the morning was Grey Flannel Suit -- AKA Howard Schmidt, Special Agent, Director of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Computer Crime Investigations. Schmidt started surfing the Net to show how easily a child could stumble across cyberporn. His smooth demonstration was interrupted when ALA/CIEC attorney Ann Kappler pressed for details and Schmidt reluctantly allowed that he had run his initial searches without SurfWatch activated. Schmidt admitted: "SurfWatch would not have allowed the search." He also had typed in URLs from the paper copy of Playboy Magazine -- which children are prevented from buying. Kappler told me over lunch: "He left himself wide open." The judges seemed to agree. No matter what our Philly panel decides, this case is headed for the Supreme Court. Today is the last day of our hearing, followed by closing arguments on June 3. [As of late 4/15, this has been rescheduled to 5/10. -DBM] Then the three-judge panel will issue an opinion by the end of the summer. The losing side will appeal to the Supreme Court, which returns from summer recess on October 7. Stay tuned for more reports. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- We're back in court 4/15 for the last day of the hearing and 5/10 for closing arguments. The 4/26 date is no longer necessary since we finished a day early. Mentioned in this CDA update: Carl Kadie's note on how Olsen's plan is unconstitutional <http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/fight-censorship/dl?num=2174> CDA Update #6, with more details on Dan Olsen's proposal <http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/fight-censorship/dl?num=2143> Net-Guru David Reed's article: "CDA may pervert Internet architecture" <http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/fight-censorship/dl?num=2093> Social Security Admin. <http://www.ssa.gov/> Dan Olsen at BYU <http://www.cs.byu.edu/info/drolsen.html> Fight-Censorship list <http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/> BYU's censorship policy <http://advance.byu.edu/pc/releases/guidelines.html> Rimm ethics critique <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/rimm/> Int'l Net-Censorship <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/zambia/> CMU net-censorship <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kcf/censor/> University censorship <http://joc.mit.edu/> Grey Flannel Suit <howardas(a)aol.com> Carl Kadie's CAF site <http://www.eff.org/CAF/> This report and previous CDA Updates are available at: <http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/> <http://www.eff.org/pub/Legal/Cases/EFF_ACLU_v_DoJ/> <http://www.epic.org/free_speech/censorship/lawsuit/> To subscribe to the fight-censorship mailing list for future CDA updates and related net.censorship discussions, send "subscribe" in the body of a message addressed to: fight-censorship-request(a)andrew.cmu.edu Other relevant web sites: <http://www.eff.org/> <http://www.aclu.org/> <http://www.cdt.org/> <http://www.ala.org/> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: CDA Court Challenge: Update #7 (Ducks on the Net)
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:51 AM 4/16/96, Declan B. McCullagh wrote: >In this update: Ducks on the Net! > More on BYU's Dan Olsen's censorhappy boondoggle > Grey Flannel Suit wears Blue Pinstripe, surfs for porn ???? Apparently "The Netly News" has given up on simple, straightforward reporting in favor of "Pop Journalism." Cute headlines instead of informative ones. (The reason I no longer try to wade through the cuteness of "Wired," another example of postmodernism carried too far.) Curmudgeonly Yours, --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: why compression doesn't perfectly even out entropy
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:16 PM 4/15/96, Wei Dai wrote: >On Thu, 11 Apr 1996, Timothy C. May wrote: > >> That there can be no simple definition of entropy, or randomness, for an >> arbitrary set of things, is essentially equivalent to Godel's Theorem. > >I think what you mean is that there is no simple way to measure >randomness. Simple, nice definitions of randomness do exist. Actually Well, I don't view any of the "simple definitions" of randomness as especially useful; that is, the simple definitions have a kind of circularity (implicit in the points we both make). For example, "an object is "random" if it has no shorter description than itself," the classic Solomonoff-Kolmogorov-Chaitin definition, is quite elegant, but doesn't help much in many cases. Because even this definition needs to be fleshed out, thought about, pondered, and explored, this is why I said "there can be no simple definition of entropy, or randomness, for an arbitrary set of things." Maybe you would say a simple definition does exist, but that interpreting that definition and applying it to a set of things is harder....a difference, I think, of emphasis. I hold that in looking at some object (set, sequence, string, etc.) and asking "Is it random?," the very question is misleading. It may _appear_ to be random to me, or to a particular machine which is unable to find a compression (= shorter description, implying nonrandomness), but someone else or some other program may find the compression. >> (To forestall charges that I am relying on an all-too-common form of >> bullshitting, by referring to Godel, what I mean is that "randomness" is >> best defined in terms of algorithmic information theory, a la Kolmogorov >> and Chaitin, and explored in Li and Vitanyi's excellent textbook, >> "Algorithmic Information Theory and its Applications.") > >A year ago, you recommended me a book by the same authors titled _An >Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications_. Have the >authors written a new book, or are these the same? The same book. I rely on carbon-based memory. By the way, Greg Chaitin has a new version of his "Universal Turing Machine" system implemented in JavaScript. At: http://www.research.ibm.com/people/c/chaitin/nv/index.html (Here I rely on non-carbon-based cut-and-paste.) --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: What can the judge do to me?
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:51 PM 4/15/96 -0400, Black Unicorn wrote: >Even contracts are in the end enforced by government in the United States. The fact the illegal contracts can't be enforced is responsible for most "drug" violence. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bill Frantz | The CDA means | Periwinkle -- Computer Consulting (408)356-8506 | lost jobs and | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | dead teenagers | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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